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Be Aware of the Competition

The next uh flied is coming back to our question from online be aware of the competition now this is who was the person ask this question has no I want to address them that was lauren or s p l s b right so hard claim is that she became so where the competition at an intimidator is that correct yes pretty much yeah like I would say step beyond intimidation you're crippling you got frozen right so that's essentially the notion hears I'm saying it's something different here and we consort of hash it out l s b competition is a good thing competition can wake us up and drive us to excel so this is an unusual view because you know when you I've been in this situation a number of times with business enterprises and you go wait with this president bring in competition and it's the first thing is what a pain in the butt now my little hegemony is being challenged you know um but beyond that then you looking to go okay wait a minute now how good is my offering and it can be absolutely a driving f...

orce in increasing the quality of your offering if you take it as a challenge rather than as it's sort of like overwhelming force so I think I understand that you know what? What laura saying there but there's another way to view competition which is to get your stuff at a higher level and also increase your sales and marketing there's a general rule that markets open, they saturate and then they become hyper saturated you know? So it would be interesting to look at that in relation to creative alive you know, because they're offering the offerings clear it's online training seminars right that's is clear as a bell who else is doing do we know there are some in the space but doing it in a completely different way? But well, no doubt if if if we're being successful with this we're going to get imitated and also maybe some somebody comes in with powerful engine and because we wave pioneered the concept here they just go like, okay clone duplicate, eradicate and that happens it's almost an inevitable cycle in business that if you successful it's something like that that somebody else is going to come along and sort of uh um take your model and run with it unless what unless you have a blue ocean strategy was the name of a book written by two french business professors but it's about not competing but creating value in eliminating the competition by actually examining the elements of competition deciding which ones you really need to engage with and then differentiating yourself so the common business what's called blue ocean because it's big enough for everybody the reason it's called a blue oceans because typically business is about swimming with the sharks in an ocean of blood for that one option or you can create increasing value away fromthe sharks and the competition and swimming a blue ocean so the first business that they profile is actually circus away and how they eliminated barnum and bailey which was a huge gorilla that was really so I encourage so what happened? A barnum and bailey well, they became they've declined as well okay that's not so blue ocean now it was for circus away but but you see, it wasn't blue ocean for barnum and bailey no they didn't well they didn't engage the strategy they didn't compete couldn't keep up right? Yeah, I think it's a little bit of both I understand what you're saying but there's a side to this that is like, you know, uh, it's interesting to watch like I can't help it it's just something I kind of like um is, uh, ufc, you know? And I'll tell you why I like it it's because it's chess with your body people think it's brutal but it's really not brutal it's skill and it's a lot of different skill sets like five or six different skill sets that somebody's bringing together and somebody who's like to clobber and tremendously strong powerful can just get taken down and out and always some they're tapping out on the mat with a little submission hold its a great analogy for business but business there is an element of competition and in your story there barnum and bailey lost and they went out of business and there are people sometimes that's why I say if the idea of a circus is something like it's on the blossom and every goes wow I never thought of going to circle is so much fun there's room for a lot of circuses like yoga studios there was one on every block for while coffee shops you know but a certain point if the market gets saturated for that offering either do have to involve your offering ord somehow in those five areas of business being more efficient more competent better offering better marketed better better sales for us further you swim out further into the blue ocean yeah I mean you could look at it either way to me it's the shark that swimming out into the blue ocean uh what's wrong with the shark you know there's a judgment there that a shark is a predator I mean there's I think there's a predatory aspect of business which means that but it's sharp my point here is that it's a good thing it's a great thing I think a shark is I think I just liked the idea of being a well fed shark yeah so does the shark that makes the shark the shark but it makes you know in others we're sort of going with a certain dimension of like game to enter the fray on not back away like kind of kind of common that we got from l s l s b there so I'm saying, you know, I'm taking a shot at this and saying competitions a good thing it can wake us up because we get sluggish and we get lazy, especially if you've had some success that could make you very lazy and drive us to excel. Um, so in terms of my business adventures, you know, with this company called the sinclair, we were selling something that was totally cutting edge. It could cost anywhere from one hundred fifty two, five hundred thousand dollars that's a big ticket item, you know, and you're selling to people like lucas film and staying and stevie wonder and people who like they have the money but, you know, and they khun buy it, but you have to say, this is absolutely the thing, so at a certain point another company came on line, which was called fair light remember that one, thomas and, interestingly enough, a lower end entry called kurzweil, so a lot of you might know ray kurzweil from he's the one who wrote the singularity is near he's a futurist, but he created one of the first sampling keyboards and these were the first devices that could make you sound like an orchestra by yourself so of course if there's energy in life and that people come in and they throw their hat in the ring and we used to go to these you know these conventions where you the audio engineering society conventions and you show you wears and my job was to present this thing as if it could kill the other ones that was my job and um it it wasn't about going well they're all good you know everything's good when you buy one of each no there's nobody nobody bought one of each unless they're really really out of their minds you know so you want to buy ours you know and that's what we're talking about right now is like somebody that kind of energy out of wherever in the vault you've got hidden everybody has it it's you know it's part of ah ah whole array we're talking about being gentle and aware and we're also talking about being fierce here so we're not seeing those contradictions some whatever the situation calls for that's the energy that we want to pull up kelly this is something you want to talk about right being fair yeah can be when it's necessary it's just not a natural tendency it open okay do you think it's in there somewhere oh it is yeah yeah but how do you feel when it comes out powerful I've seen death so that's so interesting is that kind of power and you know, if we go too far with any of these kind of things, the natural complement will come on, balance it, you know? So if we're to gentles, we may need to be more awaken more fierce if we're too fierce, it might be like, hey, you just you're chewing up that the landing strip here with your fierceness, you know? So, um these are interesting things to contemplate I'm just throwing them out there, your guess is as good as mine I got the goods I mouse question off because I'm just cured. I know we've talked about what is the block with the market I know you've told me before, I just want to give that clarified before it's just something you just really don't want to get involved with. Uh, well, ann and I were just talking on break and I think I'm recently going through changing what I want to shoot, so previously I really wasn't all that excited with what I was photographed making pictures up, so now that I think I have a clearer idea of where I want to go now, I'm at the hurdle of ijust and it's, so new to promote it, I just don't really know how to begin it's fine here did you also feel at some point that it was taking away from your artistry that your business it's about taking beautiful pictures, not about them having to market that as service. Well, I'd rather just be taking pictures and making them, and then, but what do I do with them? I have to have an outlet for all right? I don't think I don't know put me on the spot. I love it well and to launch my, because I think you're raising a point that many of many people who are watching this, they're going to be feeling with you, which is the creative thing, as we talked about, needs some softness and need some openness it needs playing in the sandbox that needs a sense of beauty and appreciation. So many artists, at a certain point, have somebody else do the sales and marketing, you know, I have lots of painter friends in new york, and they have agents, and I have actors with agents and have musicians, friends of managers and agents, those people out there shredding for them on, they have, they take no prisoners, and artist is just like, do you like, you know, I mean, you khun do that, you can play that dichotomy, but for those of us out there who are at this moment in time, having to do both it's in the music business, for example, it has become totally a d I y industry do it yourself you can't get a record label a manager or an agent until you're successful so they want you to do all that work so maybe you know, I have I have one friend who's uh you know, old friend a singer songwriter and his daughter has gotten very successful uh doing it herself but you know what she does? She goes online just a second persona she is her own manager and she shifts names, email addresses in personas she's completely made that up and it's worked tremendously efficiently for her so it's almost like she can shift into that persona the person doesn't know that they're dealing with the artist and so they can't bully them and take advantage of their sweetness you know, so that's a very interesting sort of device there, but at some point we might want you to engage the services of somebody it's just the tricky point is until we got something going on it's hard to do it. I had my epiphany for me with this with the way you're breaking it down, separating marketing from sales because I dont atleast for me like that if selling yourself is very painful and it somehow seems cheap, cheap or a kind of a prostitution or something or so troop chief whatever but the idea of marketing first because marketing like one of the things that I've been doing maur this year in my own life is just being more vulnerable on facebook just my own personal life go here's what's actually happening okay as opposed to here is the pretty version one light I mean, I still obviously do that as much as I can, but I do try to make take moments of being like here's my actual life and I feel like in some ways that is an act of marketing my authentic self sure it's a communication act as opposed to selling cause I'm not I'm not meeting anything in return yeah, and so you separately that is very helpful for me to kind of frame it like yeah, the marketing part is before the ask that's what the market part is just the share and if you do the marketing really well, the ass might come the other way at a certain point that's a that's a really good point um let's roll on um now we're getting into more the sales department here don't negotiate against yourself by lawyer and partner in my music publishing company judy burger who's an attorney has been telling me that for about thirty years every time it comes up don't negotiate against yourself so that was interesting masaki wasn't the sake it was sung hee said they offered me three hundred dollars and somebody here I think said, well, gee, I don't know if it's worth three hundred hours what you pay me two hundred I'll feel better about that ever never never ever do that period over and out no, no, no no, no and, uh the tricky point is understanding your weight in a situation, so don't engage negotiate against yourself that's the other person's job, not yours even if you were actually desperate when she might be you don't ever want to appear to be so no, you are helpless at that point of view if you because if somebody is in a position to take advantage of you, of course they're going to your then relying on their good graces negotiation you don't want to be in that position. So uh, I'm I thought we could talk about the notion of strength going to negotiation and it's not necessarily based on your perception of your value it's their perception of your value that matters so when we negotiate, we need a stick and a carrot that's that's the thing if you just go negotiating with a carrot and say, here is what I've got are if they don't need you if they don't value your service if you're not a replay irreplaceable, indispensable all the power is starting to stack up on their side of negotiation perfect example minimum wage you know, the government now is trying to get a minimum wage of ten dollars an hour on this everybody's gone well no no, no no no because you have to give these you know, big companies the right the option of paying people four dollars an hour um the government is providing a stick there they're saying that's the law you have to do that uh a person can then going to aa job in mcdonald's or wherever and say no no you have to pay me this you know, if you don't have that uh you're in a situation you say well, I'll come in flip burgers for you you know? But unless you do it really well or you have some leverage there you have something to offer if there's a hundred other people looking for that job with the same qualifications you have no stick you in a very weak negotiating position. So this is tricky because if we have the poverty mentality we always underestimate our stick the size of a stick and we're on lee working with karen at that point we're basically we become beggars, you know, in a sense so um it's something we have to realistically assess and each negotiation we go into and it helps to really have ah clear idea you know of what it is that how much strength do you have going in and you really strength this thing. I don't need this, you know, if you're not prepared to say, walk away um, so, you know, it's interesting. Um, I won't mention who but it's uh, it's a friend of mine was in a position she does graphic design, and the client was driving her crazy ever happened to us on a certain point you go. Well, you know what? This is taking ten times more time than we said it was going to take. I gotta charge you for that. And or we have to change the way we're working on this situation to make it more time efficient for me. And the stick has to be that you're ready to walk away. He's got I don't need this job, and they have to go. No, no, no, no. And this is what happened, my friend the person said, no, no, no, no, we need you don't walk away, we need you to the job now you're in a much stronger position, okay, so negotiation is, is, uh, something we have to really study, you know, and I don't think it just applies the business on lee it's all kinds of levels of exchange, any exchange that's going on